Media COverage and Polling

Table of Contents

Media Coverage

Key Question: How does traditional media and social media have an impact on a voter’s image of candidates and their campaign?

Clip: When Are Races Called? (5:54)

Clip: Harris and Trump Media Strategies (5:59)

Bell Ringer: How and Why Politicians Lie (3 Clips)

Bell Ringer: Fact Checking Political Candidates (2 Clips)

Clip: Media Coverage of Black Voters (3:54)

Clip: Politics and Food (3:38)

Clip: Political Coverage of Candidates and Scandals (6:30)

Clip: Photographing the Candidates (4:39)

Clip: Media Coverage of Howard Dean's 2004 Iowa Speech (3:19)

History of Polling

Lesson: Polling and Public Opinion (8 Clips)
Bell Ringer: History of Political Polling (5:48)
Lesson: History of Political Polling (14 Clips)

Understanding Polls

Key Question: How does polling work and what purposes does it serve?

Lesson: How to Interpret Political Polls (8 Clips)

This lesson has students learn about the basics of polling including concepts like margin of error, representative samples and the different methodologies used by pollsters.

Lesson: Polling the Public on Politics (9 Clips)

In this lesson, students will view videos to learn about the impact of polling through historic examples of presidential elections, discover the significance of "who" participates in polls and "how" pollsters reach them as well as the importance of language in phrasing questions in polls and the timing in conducting them.

Lesson: Election Prediction Project (3 Clips & Slides)

In this lesson, designed by former C-SPAN Classroom Teacher Fellow Jane Highley, students will predict the results of an upcoming presidential or senatorial election. The purposes for this lesson include for students: (1) To draw reasonable & unbiased conclusions based on election data., (2) To cultivate quantitative analytical skills., and (3) To draw distinctions between what you want the data to say and what the data actually says.

Clip: Latest Polls - One Week From Election Day (4:49)

Bell Ringer: 2024 Presidential Election Forecasting Model (3:39)

Bell Ringer: Rating Pollsters (2:39)

Clip: Public Opinion Polling and Campaign 2024 (8:12)

Bell Ringer: Focus Groups (3 Clips)

Clip: Understanding Polling (5:59)

Bell Ringer: Exit Polls (2 Clips)

Bell Ringer: Incorrect Polls (1:40)

Bell Ringer: Representative Samples and How Polling Works (2 Clips)

Bell Ringer: Polling and Phone Surveys (2 Clips)

Bell Ringer: Push Polls (3 Clips)

Bell Ringer: Internal vs Public Polling (2:33)

Bell Ringer: Political Polling (5 Clips)

Bell Ringer: Sampling Error and the Margin of Error (2 Clips)

Culminating Assessment: OPTION #1: Have students complete the “Comparing the Coverage” chart. Then have students search through digital and social media for the same issues or candidates and compare the coverage.

Possible Extension: In addition to examining media coverage of the candidates, examine the quantity of coverage and then discuss what impact, if any, this has on the election. You may wish to compare mainstream news coverage with the popularity of the candidate on Google Trends. What accounts for the differences?

Culminating Assessment: OPTION #2: Create your own Political Poll.

- - Discuss with your group what you would like to research for your poll.
  - Define your universe. The universe is the total population that you are trying to gather research on. Typically the smaller the universe the more accurate the poll, however the larger the universe the more useful it is.
  - Determine the demographics of your universe. Find the percentages of each of the following:
    - Age of students
    - Race of students
    - Gender of students
      - Example: There are 30 students in a class - 10 sixteen year olds, 12 seventeen year olds, and 8 eighteen year olds. So 33% of the class is sixteen, 40% of the class is seventeen, and 27% of the class is eighteen.
  - Create 5 questions for your poll. Be careful not to use wording that is biased because that could skew your results. Your polling questions should also have a multiple choice answer or provide a scale for how much participants agree or disagree with a statement.
  - Conduct your poll and record responses.
  - Analyze your data, and create a graph representing your results.
- Follow up questions:
  - Did you get any surprising results from your poll? Why or why not?
  - What are some things you could do to improve your polling?
  - How could this information be used by a candidate in an election?

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